Walking out of the building and into the cold, I wondered how many faces of New Yorkers I get to see every day. By the time I left the building I was up to 7 or so, then there were so many more, looking at me, not at me, would printed faces count? Would I only count faces?, people?, the experiences of seeing a person?
A large fire truck was going west on 96th street. Should I just count the Firefighters I saw? Or what about the man who was driving the large ConEd truck, with two giant spools of cable, going uptown on Broadway.
The truck had a green light, the Fire Engine slowed down a little I think... the driver of the druck hit the brakes, both vehicles were coming closer and closer to each other slowly. The cab of the truck was as high as the side of the fire engine, the fire engine was almost out of the intersection. Their distance was maybe 10 feet, 5 feet, 3 feet... inches... the truck would stop, the truck would stop, the truck would stop, or so I hoped, or so I hoped...
what followed was the impact. Giants crushing into each other. I wondered how many tons of material just hit each other. Slow, yet hard.
The fire truck kept going. It stopped a few yards after the intersection.
The ConEd truck would stay a while. Well, it was not exactly a truck anymore.

Did I take any pictures of the event? I did not. Did I run up to the accident to see how badly the driver of the truck was injured? No, I did not. Did I stay a while to wait for help to arrive? No. Call help? No.

Not only did I not slow down to see anything that had just happened, I even had to jot it down not to forget it, so it seemed. The situation was just not one in which I could have been of any help, really, seriously, no? The fire truck was okay, they clearly had already called for help. The situation was completely clear. There was no wrong doing. This was a very clear accident...
I hope the truck driver came out okay.

What struck me as odd was that I somehow immediately forgot about the event. There was this accident that I just watched in full daylight. There, a major change to somebody's life had just taken place... and my head just almost erased it all quickly and efficiently... until much later in the day, when I suddenly remembered that yes, this was what happened...
and now again.
I do not think I will be counting people or faces... not any time soon... so strange.